P J Dunn - Random Musings and Memories @pjdunn49

Random Musings and Memories

Well, it’s Saturday afternoon, college football, kicking back in the recliner, cold Pepsi & snacks. Spent all morning working on promotional ideas for my books. Next Saturday, I will be in Kings Mountain, N.C. for the Gateway Trails Celebration, which includes the celebration of the 231st anniversary of the Revolutionary War Battle of Kings Mountain. My book, “King of the Mountain” is being featured at the celebration and I will be there greeting friends and signing books. I am sure it will be a great time. I grew up about 1/4 mile from where the event will be held and I am sure the memories will flood my mind. You can’t spend 20 years somewhere without making some good memories and some not so good. In my younger years, I was, I guess, what you may call a little anti-social, bashful, or a loner. Though I had friends in the neighborhood there on the mill hill, and I spent a lot of my days playing with the other kids. But I also spent a lot of time alone riding my bike, throwing a ball against the concrete steps and catching it, climbing trees, wandering through the woods and just pretending I was the cowboy or the superhero I saw on TV earlier. I did not even know my Dad. He had left when I was very young and I never had the father figure I wanted so bad. My Grandpa was that figure I needed, but he died of a heart attack when I was five years old. Even at five years old, I knew my life would forever change. My sister, of course, didn’t want to play boy games and definitely didn’t want to hunt snakes out in the woods near our home. I was about 9 years old when a new Pastor came to our church. He and his wife had four sons, one of which was just my age. Alex and I became best friends, and most folks would say you didn’t see one of us without the other. His Mom and Dad became very close to me and treated me as if I was the fifth son. Alex had a little more of a wild side than I did and I would follow his lead and ended up in trouble way too many times. I did, however, shed my “lone wolf” complex and began to interact with Alex’s brothers and also other kids at school. Alex’s brother, Johnny, became my role model. I wanted to be just like him. I finally had a “family” that loved me, cared for me, wanted to do things for me and with me. Not that my Mom and Grandmother didn’t love me, I knew they did. Not that they didn’t care for me or didn’t want to do things for me or with me they just weren’t able to. They did the best they could, and I knew that, but there was so much more I needed.

The Pastor was the father figure I needed. He would do things with me and Alex, he played with us, and he would talk to us and especially to me. I could talk to him about anything and he never became upset with me, criticized me, or made me feel I was a terrible person, just like I felt a father would do. Then, when I was twelve, my world was again turned upsidedown. The Pastor received a call to another church congregation, and the Family moved to Spencer, North Carolina. I knew once again that my life was going to change forever.

High Cotton chronicles the life of a 12 year old boy, his kidnapping, and being sold into slavery. He suffered torture and abuse and witnessed horrible events prior to and during his journey via slave trader ship to America. He was auctioned to a plantation and eventually emancipated. He returns to the sea aboard the same ship he arrived on, and remains until the death of the ships Captain. Left a substantial amount of money by the Captain only to be conned by a carpetbagger, he looses everything and ends up a beggar on the streets of St. Louis. A very talented entertainer, even though a black man in a society of white aristocracy, he gains popularity and becomes an owner of a night club and faces adversity on every hand.

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Genre – Historical fiction

Rating – PG

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Blog http://www.pjdunn.tumblr.com/

Why Book Covers are So Important By AFN Clarke @AFNClarke

Why Book Covers are So Important
By AFN Clarke
Have you passed up reaching for a book because the cover didn’t enthrall you?  Or had your eyes glaze over as you scanned rows of books, then suddenly been arrested by a cover that held your gaze and said “choose me”?  I know it’s happened to me countless times.  And therein lies the main reason why book covers are so important.
Book covers do sell books, no matter what anyone else tries to tell you.  Of course other things like description and writing style are important – but a reader has to be moved to pick up the book in the first place. The impression you make in the first few seconds is the one that counts.
Readers, whether they consciously know it or not, want some sense of certainty and a feeling of anticipation from the cover of a book – information about the genre, what it’s about, and most crucially, what they might feel when they read it.  The way I see it is, that as they look at a book every little piece of information gets whisked away onto the scales of justice in their brain.  One side of the scale says “buy”, the other side says “no”.  Like grains of sand the evidence piles up till the scales tip and the reader has overwhelming evidence to buy the book. And it all happens in the blink of an eye.  No pun intended.
So what tips the scales?

1. Firstly, are all the elements congruent with each other? If your title screams “thriller”, the colours are pale and romantic, and the font childlike, you’re causing confusion in your readers.
2. Does the cover imply the genre of your book?
3. Do the images or graphics give more information about the story, location, characters?
4. What’s the emotional impact of the cover? Images, shapes and colours engender specific feelings in readers, and marketing gurus tell us that people buy more based on emotional response than logic. So is your cover dark and menacing?  Warm and inviting? Is your font rounded and friendly or sharp and explosive? And if the design is still a total mystery, is it intriguing and puzzling enough to warrant further investigation?
5. Is the title adding to your “buy me” pile?  As authors, we agonise over each word of our story yet we often lose the plot when creating titles.  Perhaps it’s why many of us aren’t good at Twitter – because we’re not used to expressing ourselves in 140 characters or less!  That’s my excuse anyway. With fiction especially, avoid using words that are “downers” like torment, hardship, brutal, anguish, malevolent, lacerations, blood bath – unless very cleverly paired with other words or part of the horror genre – as they’re a turn off. There are countless stories in author forums about how sales soared after a simple change of name .. so don’t discount the power of a title – and the power of change.

And in true thriller fashion, just to throw in an unexpected twist at the very end, here’s a sample from The Guardian’s book blog from March 19, 2013 about Kiran Desai’s Booker prize winner,  “The Inheritance of Loss”:
“Presumably the marketing department keyed in ‘self-important, depressing, award-winning, Literary-with-a-capital-L’ and hit Return, and this is what the machine gave them. (They also added the fairly redundant subtitle, ‘A Novel’. Just in case we might have mistaken it for a comical sports book.)
Go figure! As with all rules, they are made to be broken J
AFN CLARKE is a full-time author, son of a British MI6 operative, pilot, sailor, screenwriter, father of four who’s lived all over the world, served as an officer in Britain’s elite Parachute Regiment, and recovered from the physical/emotional traumas of war. He’s insatiably curious, loves heated discussions and has a rascally sense of humour. His bestselling memoir CONTACT was serialized in a British newspaper and made into an award winning BBCTV film. He now writes fiction of various genres – the Thomas Gunn thriller series (The Orange Moon Affair; The Jonas Trust Deception with more coming soon); political thrillers (An Unquiet American); human drama (Dry Tortugas); humour/satire (Dreams From The Death Age; Armageddon); and psychological horror (Collisions). All available now at the Amazon Kindle Store.

The Jonas Trust Deception, another Thomas Gunn thriller by bestselling author AFN Clarke, follows The Orange Moon Affair, a “hard to put down”, “5-star novel by a 5-star author”. Thomas (ex-Special Forces) goes on high alert after a desperate message from his journalist friend, Morgan. She’s in danger. But where? And why? Rushing to her ranch he finds it being torn apart by a highly-trained female assassin of East European descent, with a mysterious butterfly tattoo on her neck. An image that sends his mind reeling. Dread seeping into his soul.

In her ongoing investigations, Morgan may have uncovered something even more explosive and far-reaching than the Orange Moon conspiracy.  If so, her enemies will want both her and her information destroyed. Racing to follow tangled leads, Thomas and his girlfriend Julie are thrust into the deadly path of Mexican drug cartels, corrupt politicians, unscrupulous financial brokers like Jonas T Purdue, the FBI, the UK intelligence services and their arch nemesis Marika Keskküla. What deception binds these unlikely “players” together? What’s their power struggle really about? And even more personally disturbing, why the constant links back to a secret mission in Afghanistan, that Thomas has tried so hard to forget?

Outraged by the feeling of constantly being “played”, Thomas decides to turn the tables on the faceless “puppeteers” by taking an action so bold, so dangerous, and so unexpected, that even his team fear he’s lost his mind. Has he? Or can he expose the “vermin” at the top and finally eliminate them forever?

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Genre – Thriller

Rating – PG-13

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Website http://www.afnclarke.com/

A Day in the Life of S.P. Cervantes @spcervantes

A Day in the Life of S.P. Cervantes

Being a mother of three, a wife, a teacher, and a writer is all about balance.  During the summer I am markedly better at all of the above. I have time to be with my kids, clean, cook, and develop new lessons for the school year.

My life during the school year is hectic.  Every morning I wake up at 5am.  I check emails and read up on blogs for good books to read.  I like to see how authors are promoting their books since I am new to the publishing world, and early in the morning is the best time for me to check some sites out.

After getting my kids ready for school, I spend my day teaching and prepping lessons.  When I get home the crazy begins.  Between shuffling my son to his after school activities and entertaining fur year old twins, I take a break from it all and go on a jog.  I get some of my best ideas for my stories while running and listening to music.  I find myself laughing, crying, and sometimes stopping to type an idea on my phone while running.  I am not sure why I get my ideas while running or right before bed, but there it is.

Weekends are where I get most of my writing done.  My husband always allows me an entire day to hide away, ignore my kids, and write.  It is in those moments that I feel free to express myself without worrying about the clock or interruptions.

Every night, after I tuck the kids into bed, I either spend an hour or two writing or reading.  It is a constant battle because there are way too many amazing books out there to read, but I have just as many floating around in my mind begging to be told.

In between the craziness, I find time to research marketing, ideas for my book, and even time for my husband.  It’s a crazy life, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it.  Well, maybe to be a NY Times best seller!

 

Excerpt

Ava

Dalton brushed his hand slowly across my temple, down my cheek, and lifted my chin to him so I was looking into his deep blue eyes. I stared at him not knowing what to do or say.

He leaned in even closer, his mouth pressed against my ear again as he whispered, “They have powers that can take away your free will, make you do anything they want you to. No matter what you see or hear, you have to wait for Aiden.”

I was terrified, my heart racing so frantically I thought I could actually throw up. I didn’t know what to do. Everyone I ever cared about was in grave danger, and I had to sit still in a tree and do nothing. How did I manage to get Patrick mixed up in all of this? I should have known he would come and talk to my mom. Now it’s going to be impossible to get away clear and free.

I gently pulled my head away from Dalton’s ear, turning my face to his. Our eyes met with such desperation, I lost my train of thought. He leaned in towards me with one arm wrapped around my waist and the other bracing us against a branch. Dalton’s mouth was an inch from mine. I could feel his warm breath on my lips.

“Please protect them,” was all I could say.

Twin sisters Ava and Hannah were ripped from their peaceful seeming lives into a whirlwind of attacks and war only to learn the real truth about their existence.

Nothing was as it seemed anymore and may never be again. They had already lost their father in childhood now they have to cope with their mother’s kidnapping as they watch those sworn to protect them risk their lives.

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Genre - YA Romantic Fantasy

Rating – PG-13

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Cerece Rennie Murphy – How to have fun giving an On-the-Spot Interview @CereceRMurphy

How to have fun giving an On-the-Spot Interview

Unlike most public speaking opportunities, I actually look forward to interviews.  Whether they are in-person, on camera, radio or via an emailed list of questions, I always feel like I know how to prepare and just what to do because an interview is about the one thing you know best – you.  You might not be able to list significant developments in the Middle East Crisis or come up with a succinct definition of “irony” on the spot, but you are an expert in you and your work and that’s all an interview is really about.   So here are some thoughts I have on how to approach an interview with anticipation instead of dread.  You might even have a little fun in the process.

1)     Ask yourself what you would want to know.  Look at the body of work that the people interviewing you will be familiar with.  Are there any interesting connections, inconsistencies or curious departures that, if you were a stranger, you’d want to know more about?  Practice putting your thoughts together on how to describe, explain or clarify your unique journey.  I wouldn’t recommend memorizing anything here, because if you get nervous and you can’t find “the word” that’s supposed to come next, you might convince yourself that you’re lost when you’re not.  You can never be lost in an interview because you have the ultimate home court advantage – you know you better than anyone else.  You just want to have thought about the questions they might ask long enough for your to identify the themes and patterns that are important to you so that you can recall them with more ease when you need to.

2)     Don’t be afraid to give an answer they don’t like.  A really good interviewer wants to get to know you.  The right answer is the one you give.  It may not be what they are looking for, but that doesn’t mean it is wrong.  I’ll never forget one of the last job interviews I had. One of the interviewers asked me what I would do if I disagreed with my supervisor.  I told her that I would voice my opinion and then leave it up to the supervisor to decide.  She didn’t like that.  I could see it right away, but it was the truth and if she couldn’t handle that then I probably wasn’t the right fit for her or the organization.  It’s tough to do this when your livelihood is on the line.  You have to decide what are the things you can compromise on and what are the things you just can’t and stand as firm as you can for as long as you can, otherwise, it will come back to bite you in the butt.

3)     Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know.  Expect the question you didn’t prepare for.  Be surprised. It’s ok.  The trick is not in the fact that you didn’t know they were going to ask that question.  That’s obvious, unless you are clairvoyant.  The trick is in how you handle the surprise and answer the question anyway.   Talk about what you do know on the subject, or why your attention has been focused on X thing that is more important to you/relevant to what you are doing, or how you would find out about X thing and what you think are the most pressing questions to be answered.  A surprise is your chance to surprise them right back.  At a recent convention, I was pitching my book to an attendee (which is a mini-interview in itself) and in mid-pitch she cut me off and told me that my book sounded like another book by a British author.  What do you say to that?  Since I didn’t know what she was talking about, I asked her if she could remember the title and tell me a little bit about the storyline.  I could tell she was taken aback.  Her comment was meant to disarm me, but instead I was curious.  She wasn’t expecting that.  Suddenly, she became flustered, “I don’t really know,” she said sheepishly then grabbed a bookmark off my table.  “Does this have all the information on your books,” she asked. “Yes,” I replied.  “You can read the first chapter of the first book for free on my website.” Another surprised look came across her face, “Ok,” she offered, looking me in the eye for the first time during our interaction.  “I’ll check it out,” she said finally before walking away.  Maybe she will, maybe she won’t, but the point is, I wasn’t afraid, either way.

4)     And last, but not least, breathe and smile. I always feel honored whenever someone wants to know my opinion on anything.  Take it as a sign that you’ve got something that someone thinks is worth sharing – so share it.  You’ll feel better for it and you just might help someone else along the way.

What would you do if you held infinite power in the palm of your hand? Part One of the thrilling Order of the Seers trilogy poses this question within a story that fuses action, mystery, romance, and adventure in a science fiction novel that keeps you at the edge of your seat. Captured and enslaved for their extraordinary gift, a group of individuals, known as Seers, are forced to serve a ruthless world organization that uses the power of the Seers to exploit the ultimate advantage: knowing the future. While a brother and his Seer sister fight to evade the group that hunts them, an unlikely captured Seer, plots his escape from within the organization and sets off a chain of events that will change the world.

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Genre – Science Fiction

Rating – NC-17

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Website http://www.crmurphybooks.com

Why Book Covers are So Important – Shirleen Davies @ShirleenDavies #Harder

When I first began the series, The MacLarens of Fire Mountain, it was all about the stories and character development. I really didn’t think much about book covers although I knew I needed them. I’d already decided the series would be at least four books long and each would focus on a different brother – but the cover?
That changed as I started to read comments on book blogs and readers groups about how people are often drawn to a cover first, then determine if they’ll read the book description. Personally, I’d always found the genre I wanted to read, found books, read their descriptions, and made a buy decision, oftentimes only glancing at the cover. I found I was not in the norm.
Being an Indie Author, I spent at least two days a week plotting how I would market my books. Now, I realized I had to spend time finding a cover designer who would convey my vision of each book and do it within my very tight budget. It took some effort, but I did find a designer that was willing to work with me to achieve what I think are some very good covers.
My designer worked on book one, Tougher than the Rest, and within two weeks I had the jpeg. I used it on several social networks and almost instantaneously received great feedback. Not only did the viewers like the cover, but several asked when the book would be out as the cover peeked their interest enough to buy it. My perception of cover art changed. I was sold!
I went back to my cover designer and put in orders for the next two books, Faster than the Rest, and the current book, Harder than the Rest. Faster was used on social media about one month before it released and again, the feedback was amazing. When Faster released, I sent messages out to some of the readers who had responded with positive comments and everyone indicated they were looking forward to buying it. Did they? I don’t know, but the covers generated excitement and buzz, which is needed for any Indie Author.
Oh yes, I am also getting great feedback on the cover for Harder than the Rest.
I now realize that once I have the shell of a new book, the first thing I do is contact my cover designer and get him started. It’s never too early to use the cover of a future book in your promotions and social media posts.

Lesson learned: A good cover will generate favorable impressions of your work even before the book is released.

“They are men you want on your side. Hard, confident, and loyal, the MacLarens of Fire Mountain will seize your attention from the first page.”

Will MacLaren is a hardened, plain-speaking bounty hunter. His life centers on finding men guilty of horrendous crimes and making sure justice is done. There is no place in his world for the carefree attitude he carried years before when a tragic event destroyed his dreams.

Amanda is the daughter of a successful Colorado rancher. Determined and proud, she works hard to prove she is as capable as any man and worthy to be her father’s heir. When a stranger arrives, her independent nature collides with the strong pull toward the handsome ranch hand. But is he what he seems and could his secrets endanger her as well as her family?

The last thing Will needs is to feel passion for another woman. But Amanda elicits feelings he thought were long buried. Can Will’s desire for her change him? Or will the vengeance he seeks against the one man he wants to destroy—a dangerous opponent without a conscious—continue to control his life?

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Genre – Western Historical Romance

Rating – PG-13

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J.J. Ward – Should Amazon have a separate ranking for book reviewers? @MI7Ward

Should Amazon have a separate ranking for book reviewers?

I recently delved into the forums for Amazon reviewers, and found it quite entertaining. I’d never realised there was such controversy to be had on the matter of giving your opinion on commodities. Things like should the ‘unhelpful’ vote be abolished? Should you be allowed to vote on your own reviews? Are some reviewers artificially pumping up their ranking by getting their friends to vote for their product assessments?

What struck me most is how seriously most reviewers take their ranking.

Now, I’m not complaining about that. I’d be exactly the same in their position. Amazon has made the whole thing into a game, and games are fun. There’s no fun in any game, though, if you don’t want to win.

It did strike me as a little unfair, though. Because quite a lot of the reviewers in the top 10,000 are book critics. They review books to the exclusion of all else. Many of them have blogs, and they post their assessments not only on Amazon, but also on their own sites, and on Goodreads.

Do you know what I’d do if I wanted to get into Amazon’s top fifty reviewers? I’d buy a 100 cheap electrical items, I’d spend twelve hours plugging them in and using them, then I’d write a review on each. Next day, I’d order some more, and go through the same process again. Pretty soon, if I was actually any good at plugging stuff in and using it – a big ‘if’, obviously: most of us struggle in that department – I’d see those helpful votes come pouring in. In no time at all, I’d be King of the Reviewers! KING, I TELL YOU!

Books take time to read. Is there ever going to be a book blogger at #1 in the Amazon Reviewer charts? I doubt it. Not unless he or she starts plugging more stuff in and using it.

Amazon started off as a bookseller before it diversified into DVD’s, CD’s and then the entire known capitalist economy. Perhaps in deference to that, it should provide separate charts for different types of reviewers – after all, they do that with books: you’ve got the romance chart, the literary chart, the thriller chart, etc – to give the book reviewers a shot at a top spot. Maybe those who want to continue to be jacks of all trades should commit to at least ten different categories of products.

After all, reviewing books isn’t just a hobby: it’s a vocation.

When someone starts assassinating paparazzi in three countries, MI7 sits up. Apparently, the killer is none other than Dmitri Vassyli Kramski, retired SVR field-operative and former Kremlin protégé. True, the Cold War is long finished, but everyone knows Vladimir Putin is as unhappy for Russia to play second fiddle on the international stage as even the most strident of his Communist predecessors. In 2010 therefore, East-West relations remain as tortuous as ever.

Kramski’s trail leads deep into London’s émigré community, forcing his pursuers into conflict with an unknown organisation bent on protecting him. Bit by bit, he begins to look less like a professional assassin and more like someone plotting to scupper the foundations of Western democracy itself. To compound matters, the Russians are as baffled by him as anyone.

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre – Espionage Thriller

Rating – PG

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Quality Reads UK Book Club Disclosure: Author interview / guest post has been submitted by the author and previously used on other sites.

Christina George – Eight Tips to Make Your Next Writers Conference Awesome! @publicistgal

Eight Tips to Make Your Next Writers Conference Awesome!

I love going to writers conferences, and it’s really awesome when I’m speaking there as well. But as wonderful as the networking is, if you don’t show up with a plan or a set of action items for the conference, you can get sucked up into the vibe of the event without being very productive. Here are some tips to help you maximize your event!

Goals: Before you go to a writers conference, be clear on your goals. If it’s just networking that’s great, but if you want to get more than networking out of the event, make sure you establish your specific objectives in advance.

Start networking before the event starts: Now that you’ve gone through the conference website, it’s time to identify the folks you’d like to get to know better and start your networking early. Send them an email and tell them you are looking forward to seeing them at the event, or hearing them speak. Follow them on Twitter and begin to network with them there. Early networking is a great way to get in front of agents and publishers you might not otherwise have access to.

Make appointments early: The conference website should be your new best friend. Comb through it to find names of publishers and agents who are going to be there. Most conferences will offer you publisher or agent appointments so you can present your work, but if you want to coordinate a meeting with someone for any other reason check the website to find out who will be there and see if you can get on their calendar. I have showed up at conferences hoping to make appointments there and found that they’re not only difficult to schedule, but often confusing as well. Once you hit the conference floor the momentum of the event takes over, and any appointments that haven’t been confirmed prior to the event generally won’t happen.

Take business cards: Make sure you bring a lot of business cards, running out at an event is never good.

Stay organized: I will generally bring some letter-sized envelopes with me to the event and then file cards by session or event so I can keep track of where I collected them. For example, let’s say I went to a big awards dinner and did some networking. If I file all of these in the “Awards dinner” envelope, I can add a personal element to the follow-up email like, “It was nice to meet you at the awards dinner, wasn’t Marci’s acceptance speech great?”

Easy follow-up: Ok, so you’ve had a great meeting with a publisher and they want to see a chapter of your book. Great! Now what? Take their card, flip it over and jot down a few important notes on the back such as: follow-up steps, short meeting details (“met for lunch”), and anything else you can fit onto the card such as any personal details they shared – like having a daughter who went to the same school as your kids or something like that.

Never eat alone: There’s a great networking book by the same name (Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, Crown Books) and the statement is true. At a writers conference be sure to grab a table packed with people and even better, don’t sit with the same folks over and over again. Mix it up and meet new people!

Action items: At the end of each conference day, I find it helpful to gather my notes and go through and highlight the important items from the day. I have often waited until I’m on the plane back home, or worse, the Monday following the conference and I generally can’t make heads or tails out of who I am supposed to follow up with at that point. Lesson: do it early while the information is still fresh.

And finally, our bonus tip:

Plan B: If you can’t afford to attend the writers conference that’s in your town here’s an idea for you. When a big conference rolls into town, an author friend of mine will sometimes hang out in the downstairs coffee shop or restaurant at the hotel where the event is being held and network with people there. You never know who you might meet…

Conference follow-up: This is a biggie. Make sure you always follow up with everyone you connected with, especially if you committed to them that you would send them more information, sample chapters, whatever.

Keep the networking going: Relationships take time. Don’t expect miracles when you land at a writers conference. Sometimes great stuff will happen right away, and other times it’s a process. Don’t let the networking end when the function is over. You’re now networking with them online via Twitter and Facebook, and perhaps you have some follow-up to do. Keep on their radar screen and then be on the lookout for future events you can attend!

Writers conferences are a great way to get out there and network, meet your peers and meet agents, publishers, and marketing professionals who can help you publish or market your book.

Publishing: An industry of out-of-control of egos, unrealistic expectations, and books with the shelf life of milk. This is Kate’s world, but for how long? When one of Kate Mitchell’s star authors is carted away in handcuffs, she thinks it’s only the beginning of her troubles. As her world crumbles around her, Kate desperately looks for anyone to hold onto but finds that happy endings are truly works of fiction. When her career and love affair hit their expiration date, Kate sets off on a new adventure….

Starting over in California is easy, but Kate soon learns that leaving her old life behind isn’t. Nicholas Lavigne is eager to help her forget, but two things still own her heart, the dream of discovering the next great American novel, and MacDermott Ellis. As Kate tries to rebuild her life she finds a surprising gift that reboots her career in a new and unexpected direction. Suddenly her name becomes synonymous with one of the biggest bestsellers publishing has seen in ages and she’s welcomed back with open arms. At the height of her success the ghosts of her past come back to remind her of the world she’d been trying to forget and the man who never let go of her heart. Behind the book, there’s always more to the story. Welcome to Publishing, the ego has landed.

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Genre – Contemporary Romance

Rating – R

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Quality Reads UK Book Club Disclosure: Author interview / guest post has been submitted by the author and previously used on other sites.

What Inspired Me To Write Icarus Rising – Rob Manary @robmanary

I was sitting under an apple tree and an apple fell from the tree and struck me rather soundly on the head. It was a revelation. Shit fell down! I was about to tell someone about this amazing discovery when I realized that Isaac Newton was sitting beside me and saw the whole thing, and he was writing feverishly about laws of acceleration. I only thought it neat that apples fell towards the earth and not in the other direction, and how difficult making an apple pie would be if the reverse were true. I had nothing.

So I was flying a kite with a key on a string on it in a lightning storm with a friend named Ben, and he was prattling on about wood stoves and bifocals, and just as I was hoping to get hit by lightening and put out of my misery, I was hit by lightening and…

What is wrong with me? A perfectly sensible question like, “What inspired you to write “Icarus Rising”?” and I am taking you on a demented adventure through history.  What inspired me to write “Icarus Rising?” I was thinking of growing up and all the many times I pleasured myself to grainy bootlegged VHS copies of Madonna videos when I realized… that didn’t happen either but I bet I put an image in your head, didn’t I? I apologize; this is not a very good post. Read “Icarus Rising”. It is much better, I promise.

The simple, and honest, answer is two characters came almost fully developed into my head, a world renowned female rock star and an infamous “bad boy” abstract artist. It seems our culture is fascinated with celebrity to such an extent we build them up and almost worship them like a golden calf. I was hoping to get inside my creations heads, to show that they have vulnerabilities and insecurities too. That they are human with human failings like everyone else, but they are in the position where their lives are under constant scrutiny. In “Icarus Rising” the media constantly watching as an almost villain is a theme I begin to explore.

In the second book, “Icarus Ascendant”, the media is a much more oppressive enemy of my two characters, and that will continue and intensify in the final book of the trilogy. I guess the answer to the question, “What inspired me to write Icarus Rising?” would have to be: one day these characters sprang to life and I wanted to tell their story. I wanted to step into the skin of a couple of fictional pop icons and see how they lived, see how they filled the minutes of their days, and see how one would live without the constant shackles of monetary worries. And the reverse of that as well. What could a suitor do to woo a woman who would be somewhat jaded and not easily impressed? I also wanted to tell a great love story and I hope I have succeeded in that.

Or was I inspired when I was with a pal, George, and he chopped down a cherry tree and tried to blame it on me?!

 

Rachel: A rock star. Her albums go multi-platinum overnight. She was sixteen when she had her first hit, more than ten years ago. She grew up under the scrutiny of the media. It is time for her to break out from under the shadow of her infamous Svengali ex-boyfriend/manager. She tires of the good girl image and wants to change, get dirtier, sexier. Enter Brandon.

Brandon: A playboy artist. His paintings demand almost unheard of prices at auction, but it’s his escapades away from the easel that garner the biggest headlines. He is a favorite of the tabloids and the paparazzi. A manipulator, he has used the publicity to drive up the prices of his work. If the tabloids are to be believed, he has slept his way through Hollywood’s A-list. The very definition of bad boy. He tires of the game.

Both incredibly damaged, can they heal each other or will they part lonelier and more broken than when they first came together?

This is a rock star erotic romance written by a man with a male point of view. This is how the guy is really thinking and feeling.

Icarus Rising is the first of a trilogy, but it stands as a novel by itself.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Erotic Romance

Rating – R

More details about the author and the book

Connect with Rob Manary on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://robmanary.com/

Quality Reads UK Book Club Disclosure: Author interview / guest post has been submitted by the author and previously used on other sites.

A Sense of Style: Making a Great Villain – John Phythyon @JohnRPhythyonJr

If you’re like me, you love villains. They are the most fun characters in a book or film. The Wicked Witch of the West, Darth Vader, and Ernst Stavro Blofeld are among my all-time favorite literary creations.

But what makes these characters so compelling? Why are they so fun to read and view onscreen? It comes down to a single word: style. These villains have a sense of style all their own, and they influenced how I crafted the antagonist in my latest novella, Beauty & the Beast: A Modern Fairy Tale.

Motivation

Villainy for the sake of evil is cartoonish and flat. It isn’t interesting at all. A villain, just like a hero, needs a motivation. People don’t just become evil because they wake up one morning and think it’s more attractive.

Darth Vader is the classic example of a villain who didn’t start out that way. We learn he was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He gives into anger. Unable to control his passions, he is perverted into something monstrous. His fall is a sophisticated one. He tried to become a noble Jedi, but he fails to control his emotions. That failure leads to him mastering the power of the Force but using it for evil instead of good.

We’d don’t know what made the Wicked Witch of the West wicked in the first place, but the motivation for her pursuit of Dorothy is pretty clear. She wants revenge. Dorothy accidentally kills her sister, and the Witch of the West plans to make her pay for it. When Glinda gives Dorothy the ruby slippers (or silver in the novel), she ups the ante. Now there is stolen property involved too.

My villain, Mr. Nickleby, is motivated as well. Like the Wicked Witch of the West, he seeks revenge – in his case against God. His vengeance is so much pettier than the Witch’s, because he can’t get back at his perceived oppressor directly. He makes other suffer instead.

Like Darth Vader, he’s unable to control his emotions. His sense of pride in himself and his desire for glory led to his downfall. He’s reduced to petty evil, because he can’t let go of his own obsessions.

Grandiosity

The best villains are over the top in a way that pleases us. We enjoy watching them strut around as if they were actors in a melodrama. They have their own inimitable style.

Blofeld is no common criminal. Before executing a traitor in his organization S.P.E.C.T.R.E in Thunderball, he sucks on one of his violet-scented mints, because he likes to freshen his breath before giving bad news. And Blofeld doesn’t murder those who fail him casually. They always meet a spectacular end – electrocuted in the chair they’re sitting in, shoved down a luge slide in the Alps, or dropped into a tank of hungry piranha.

Likewise, the Wicked Witch of the West doesn’t engage in subtlety. She flies over the Emerald City, skywriting “Surrender Dorothy” in smoke from her broom, and sends winged monkeys to capture Dorothy, snatching her from her friends.

When I was crafting Mr. Nickleby, I wanted him to have that same sense of over-the-top grandiosity. In this scene, he sympathizes with the novella’s main character, Rory, over the football team captain getting elected homecoming king:

He bent over, and his longish, black hair fell into his face. He scooped up the paper, stood up, and uncrumpled it. He stared at it for a few seconds and then nodded sadly.

            “I know,” he said. “Makes you sick, doesn’t it?”

            Before she could register her astonishment, he crumpled it back up and tossed it casually into the garbage. Then he shook his hair out of his face, put his hands in his pockets, and smiled at her.

            “I’m sorry?” she said, finding her voice at last.

            “I said, ‘Makes you sick, doesn’t it?’ I mean, I suppose one should expect that the quarterback of the football team and his girlfriend are going to get elected homecoming king and queen, but it’s really pretty clichéd. And what in the name of Hell did she do to deserve it, anyway? It’s not like she’s captain of the spirit squad.”

            Rory continued to gape at him. Had he really just said everything she’d been thinking?

            “What’s the matter?” he said. “Didn’t expect a teacher to be disgusted by the usual high school politics?”

            “Uh . . .” she said.

            “The same damned thing happens every year,” he went on. “The two most popular kids are elected king and queen. And it’s never the president of the student council or the valedictorian. Nobody values the people who do the real work. No, it’s always some jock and the sweet, little piece of ass he’s nailing after practice.”

            Rory’s mouth fell open. Did a teacher really just say that? To her?

            “Oh, sorry,” Mr. Nickleby said when he saw the expression on her face. “I suppose that really wasn’t appropriate for me to say to a student. It’s just that sometimes I’m a little too cynical.”

Mr. Nickleby knows how to push Rory’s buttons. He knows exactly what is making her angry. So he says what she wants to hear, but he does so in outrageously over-the-top fashion, so she’ll be shocked. By doing that, he disarms her. He charms her with his style, making her think he’s different from everyone else.

Distinctive Mark

The best villains often have something distinctive about their appearance as well, something that marks them as unique. Who can forget the Wicked Witch’s green complexion, Darth Vader’s noisy breathing, or Blofeld’s white, long-haired cat?

I wanted Mr. Nickleby to have similar, distinctive traits. In this scene, my other protagonist, Caleb, is being tempted for the first time by his teacher. Caleb really looks at him for the first time, seeing him as something more than just a teacher:

Caleb looked at him for the first time. He wore his usual outfit – a black dress shirt and slacks with a red tie. Caleb thought it was cool he wore school colors, but it was strange he wore the same thing every day, and the tie looked weird against the shirt. Longish, black hair fell on either side of his head, framing his face in a strange sort of darkness. His brown eyes were penetrating. They seemed to be looking into the depths of Caleb’s soul. It made him nervous.

Mr. Nickleby always wears the same thing. His brown eyes are almost always penetrating. Throughout the novella I describe him as having a predatory or a wolfish look on his face that unnerves the person looking at him. By doing so, I communicate to the reader there is something wrong about Mr. Nickleby long before I reveal what it is.

The best villains are stylish. They have traits that are unique to them, they are well motivated, and they are a little over the top. They are fun to read and watch. A great villain really punches up a story. In a way, the villain is what makes the tale good.

Be careful what you wish for. . . .

Rory Bellin dreams of a better life. As a senior at Lawrence High, she yearns to be taken seriously for her accomplishments – she’s editor-in-chief of the school paper, president of three clubs, and on track to graduate with a 4.0 GPA and admission to Yale. But all anyone, even her mother, cares about is LHS regaining its former football glory and winning a state championship.

Caleb Johnson dreams of a better life. He aches to be able to lead Lawrence High to its first football championship in eighteen years and to date the most beautiful girl in school – Rory Bellin. But, as the third-string running back, he never plays, he has a face no one could love, and, whenever he tries to talk to Rory, his usually glib tongue turns to clay.

But maybe Mr. Nickleby, the mysterious new English teacher and newspaper advisor, can help. He has the key to both of their desires. He’s willing to make their dreams come true.

Of course, getting what you wish for has a price. But that doesn’t matter, right? If you want something badly enough, you’ll do anything to get it, no matter what it costs. Even if it’s your soul.

Beauty & the Beast: A Modern Fairy Tale is a contemporary take on the classic story by the author of the Wolf Dasher series. John R. Phythyon, Jr. weaves a dark fairy tale both familiar and fresh about understanding what’s important, finding one’s place in the world, and the consequences of obsession.

Be careful what you wish for . . . you might just get it!

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Fairy Tales, Contemproary Fantasy

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author

Connect with John Phythyon on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://johnphythyon.wordpress.com

Why Social Networks Hold The Keys To Good Networking – Regan Black @ReganBlack

Why Social Networks Hold The Keys To Good Networking

Thanks for having me here and thanks also to the team at Orangeberry Book Tours for arranging this stop. It’s a pleasure to be here and make new friends through events like this.

Social networks and the new connections and relationships we can forge through those social media avenues have been a boon in accessibility for authors and readers. For publishers and authors who understand how to interpret the data, social media can be an effective tool to bring a writer or a book to the forefront of any genre.

It’s great being able to spread the word about a book, a blog tour, a giveaway, or anything else going on in our individual lives and reach so many people in a short amount of time through just 140 characters on twitter, or wordier updates on Facebook. And the new visual outlets of Pinterest or Instagram are wonderful for making a fast impression in our instant-gratification, zero-time world these days.

When I was first published, my author to reader marketing focus was primarily dialed into to face time events at bookstores or fairs, meetings or speaking engagements. It was wonderful, but there were the logistic limits of travel expenses, store options, and the shoppers who were around on the day of the event.

After my back injury prevented any real traveling for the better part of three years, social media enabled me to maintain connections to readers and bloggers as well as to grow my audience for my books. It sounds sappy, but it’s true: without social media, I would have felt too isolated, even for an introverted author.

With the advancements of technology and social media options, authors can connect with readers worldwide in an instant. The money I save on travel expenses I can put into fun prizes and other advertising campaigns for Bulletproof and the Unknown Identities series. Plus the time and energy I save goes right back into the writing, which means I can produce more action-packed paranormal romantic suspense stories for readers to devour.

Win-Win!

Additionally, social media allows authors to build relationships and target their message to readers who share interests outside of books. It’s not uncommon to see me tweeting about coffee, chocolate, or the latest antics of my retired greyhounds or spoiled cats.

Creating those connections with people who like to share and chat about the same things helps bridge the gap, making authors more accessible and real to their readers. As Rachel Thompson is always saying, “It’s the relationship!”  Those relationships create word of mouth momentum which is so vital for developing a loyal fan base.

Small print disclaimer for everyone: social media is often a double-edged sword because it can really steal quality writing time. I think it’s one of those lessons every author learns in their own way, and a situation each of us copes with differently.

What is your favorite way to connect with authors via social media?

Live the adventure,

Regan

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Romantic Suspense

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with  Regan Black on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.reganblack.com

How to Make Your Protagonist Believable – Diane Mulligan @Mulligan_writes

How to Make Your Protagonist Believable

What makes a character believable? In a word: Flaws.

In real life, no one is perfect. We are contradictory human beings whose beliefs and actions are often out of sync with one another. We make mistakes. Sometimes we make the same mistake over and over. With any luck, we learn and grow. With any luck, we become better people. And while we’re improving in some ways, we’re probably picking up new flaws, too.

Our flaws make us not only human but also interesting. Think about it. Would you rather befriend someone who…

practices yoga daily, makes all her family’s meals from scratch, maintains a size-two figure, has a Jon Hamm lookalike for a husband, is on track to be president of the company where she works, and finds time to knit and do other homemade crafts on the weekends;

OR

someone who doesn’t have time to cook between work and getting the kids to and from their activities so she brings home a pizza knowing that it’s bad for her paunchy husband’s cholesterol, but if he wanted to take care of his health maybe he could cook his own damn dinner now and then, and she promises herself she’ll only eat one slice but then she has four despite the fact that she really wants to fit back in her size-ten jeans by the end of February, but work has her stressed because they’re always promoting younger people and she’s afraid she’s becoming obsolete, and all she wants to do this weekend is hit the mall with her gal pals for some retail therapy and maybe some margaritas.

Be honest. You don’t want to befriend Little Miss Perfect. You don’t even want to stand next to her. You might want her life, but you don’t want to be her pal.

Of course, Polly Pizza, for all her flaws, may be believable without being likeable, and that’s a problem, too. Once you have a believable, multidimensional character roaming your story, take her a step further. Make her vulnerable.

How do you make a character vulnerable? Put her in a situation in which something she cares deeply about is in jeopardy. In that context, we see how her flaws shape her actions, her worldview, and her life’s path.

Remember, protagonists don’t have to be “good people.” They have to be believable and likeable. Showing the way a character acts in a moment of vulnerability can go a long way towards both.

What is it about guys with guitars in their hands that makes them so irresistible, even when they are obviously self-centered jerks? If Abby and Maggie could answer that question, maybe they could finally get over Nathaniel. There’s just something about him when he picks up his guitar and gets behind the microphone, something that makes sensible women act like teenyboppers instead of rational, self-respecting adults.

Abby was first sucked in by Nathaniel’s rock ‘n roll swagger four years ago when a drunken fling turned into a series of drunken hook-ups that became something like a relationship. Now, as New Year’s Eve promises a fresh start, she wants to believe he’s finally going to grow up and take their relationship seriously.

What does Nathaniel hope the New Year will bring? An escape from the disappointing realities of his life. He’s thirty-four years old and he’s barely making ends meet as an adjunct philosophy professor, which was always only a backup plan anyway. Nathaniel’s real goal was always to make his living as a musician, but his band, The Latecomers, broke up a couple of years ago, and he hasn’t picked up his guitar in months.

When he decides to spend the holiday with some high school friends instead of hanging out at the bar where Abby works, he gets the happy surprise of reuniting with his long-lost friend Maggie. Newly divorced, Maggie has just moved back to her mother’s house to regroup. Nathaniel and Maggie were supposed to be the ones who left Worcester forever to conquer the world. He was going to be a rock star. She was going to take the world of art by storm. He’s never gotten farther than Boston, and her best efforts only left her broke and heartbroken.

As they ring in the New Year together, Nathaniel decides it’s time to take control of his life and to start making his dreams come true. He thinks the first step will be easy. All he needs to do is break up with Abby and finally admit his feelings for Maggie. But the New Year has more surprises in store, and nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre – Women’s Literature

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author and the book

Connect with Diane V. Mulligan on Facebook & Twitter

 

Quality Reads UK Book Club Disclosure: Author interview / guest post has been submitted by the author and previously used on other sites.

Elliot C. Mason – 12 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer @ArthurRay44

12 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer

1. Drink more.
2. Shake off any friends you once had.
3. Stare at people for a long time, letting cigarette smoke diffuse into your eyes.
4. When you meet people ask things like ‘How many times on average do you masturbate per day?’ or ‘When was the last time you shit and did you look at the dirtied toilet paper?’ just to gage their reaction and let them know that you are a writer now -  you have no time, patience or room for sanity.
5. Discard all pretences of reading other writers’ work or maintaining contact with family members.
6. Experiment with drugs and sexuality. Maybe even start shouting and shaking your hands a lot like Ginsberg.
7. Always dress as if ready for a burlesque performance at any time; never actually take your clothes off, though – just allude to it constantly.
8. Laugh at people who talk about things as if they actually matter; when proving to them the trivial futility of existence, only quote yourself.
9. Be utterly, despicably sure of yourself. Wear it about you eternally.
10. Never, ever stay still. Staying still kills people.
11. Talk to yourself; there is no better conversation possible.
12. Then write something. And never stop writing. Quit your job to write. Write even whilst you’re dancing, whilst you’re talking, whilst you’re drinking, whilst you’re asleep and whilst you’re dead.

A stark dystopian world of insatiable greed and ceaseless distraction is that of young Gustav Klein, a German twenty-three-year-old who has just sold his hotel in Munich. He is looking for nothing more than escape. The modern gadgets which flash their endless advertisements are locking society inside brick houses, allowing them to be dumbed-down further by the money-hungry gremlins in the high towers. Gustav Klein, meanwhile, begins a journey over the myriad terrains of Europe, through countless bottles on the corner of morbid winter streets, coloured by the peculiar characters he encounters, some who bestow upon him their wisdom, some who fuel his disdain, some who ignite his desires, and some who merely drink with him until they hit the floor in a merry temperament. But the hedonistic, aimless rambling must come to end, for life calls. And Gustav lands on a mountain in Scotland, searching for release, for total nature, untouched by the destructive hand of man. But, it seems, it is too late… In this harrowing tale of youthful rebellion, dark nihilism on the road, heavy drinking beatniks, political adversity and the capricious desires of the gluttonous modern man, the reader is taken by the hand firmly and hauled into a bleak world where every man lives for himself. Close your eyes if you are scared, but you cannot escape.

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre – Travel, Political, Dystopia, Romance

Rating – PG15

More details about the author

Connect with Elliot C. Mason on Facebook & Twitter

Kevin Sterling – 5 Rules for New Authors @ksterlingwriter

“5 Rules for New Authors”

When I meet new people, and they find out I’m an author, it’s amazing how many of them say, “I have this great idea for a book, but I just haven’t had the time to sit down and write it yet.” Usually I just say “you should” and leave it at that. But if we get into a deep conversation on the subject, I’ll try to gently let them know that writing a book is not as easy as it sounds.

Constructing a full length novel is a lot of work, and for many people the first book takes years to finish. That’s probably because storylines have a way of going into unexpected directions, so they get complicated very fast, and eventually the manuscript is such a convoluted mess that it gets set aside for weeks or months before the author has the stomach to tackle it again…if ever. Very often, he or she intends to work on it at some point every day, but it’s much easier to put life’s necessities first, and there’s never time to get back to that book.

So, if you’re working on or intending to start a first novel, here are a few basic rules to follow if you hope to have a finished and marketable manuscript at any point in the foreseeable future.

1. Schedule a regular time to write. Make it every day, week or weekend, but stick to it. Tell your family and friends that this time is important to you, and they need to respect it.
2. Use an outline. If you want to “wing it” with later books, that’s fine. But once you realize the value of an outline, you probably won’t. The key is to ensure that your outline and manuscript are in alignment at all times. Modify the outline every day if necessary to correspond with any changes you’ve made to the book. Allowing the two to get out of sync will be a nightmare. Believe me. I’ve been there.
3. Understand POV. If you’re writing in third person, read everything you can about point of view (POV), and get the rules down before you start. For example, every chapter or section should be written from a single POV, and you cannot describe any other character’s thoughts or feelings. You can only write what your POV character’s observations or beliefs about the other person’s feelings may be. Nothing more.
4. Pick a tense and stick with it. Most third-person narrative is written in past tense, but you’ll see first-person in present or past. I’ve read manuscripts as a favor for people, and it amazes me how often the two are mixed together. The only exception, of course, is dialogue, which is always in present tense because you’re regurgitating what was said at the time.
5. Use an editor. No one – not even the best-selling writers in the world – can produce a viable manuscript without an editor. Ideally, this is an industry professional who not only points out story plot failures, inaccuracies and awful passages that simply must go, but who also identifies typos, grammatical mistakes, repetitive words, passive versus active descriptions, etc. Not everyone can afford a professional at first, so at least find someone who is very proficient in English like another budding writer, but they must be brutally honest with you. Then, trade favors or see if you can get by with taking them out for a nice dinner. You do NOT want to self-publish or submit a book that is littered with mistakes. It’s the surest way to kill a writing career before it even starts.

Of course, there are dozens of other practical rules and industry standards out there, which is partly why writing novels is so challenging. But it’s just a matter of time before they become second nature.

Happy writing!

The Jack Lazar Series has it all from mystery and suspense to action, humor and romance

Jack heads to Egypt to investigate a crash-landed World War II fighter plane that was recently discovered in the middle of the Sahara. But something remarkable was left onboard, and people will stop at nothing to possess it.

An Egyptian Girl with Blue Eyes? Just Stunning.

But Jack soon finds himself in the middle of a hornet’s nest as he becomes enthralled with Dalia, an exquisite woman of Egyptian and English descent whose father is the Egyptian Head Consul to the UK, not to mention a formidable ex-agent with the Mukhabarat. The man’s skills and weapons come in handy as he and Jack join forces to battle a faction that has plans to kill millions of innocent people and subject the world to their twisted ideologies.

A Race Against Time

The trail leads to Northern Europe as all hell breaks loose. And before long, it’s up to Jack and Jack alone to cheat death as he struggles to save Dalia, her father, and scores of unsuspecting people from the plot of a deranged madman.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Action, Mystery, Suspense

Rating – R

More details about the author and the book

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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Getting Published – Moira Katson @moirakatson

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Getting Published

I didn’t set out to be an indie author. Or, scratch that, a self-published author; let’s call a spade a spade.  I read numerous articles about how to get published (manuscript > editing > synopsis > querying agents > agent does something magical > profit?), and so I dutifully wrote and edited and got beta readers and edited some more, and then I queried agents. I queried a lot of agents. I queried so many agents that I no longer had time to write.
I did not get very many rejections, just one or two. Mostly, I got silence. My friends and family, including my beta readers, were eager to know about my search for an agent. As I explained the process and my frustrations, every single one of them asked the same follow-up question: Why don’t you self-publish?
I tried to explain How It Worked. I talked about the industry attitude towards self-publishing: that those authors were hacks who wouldn’t follow the rules, and self-published work was crap. In response, they sent me articled about Hugh Howey, Darcie Chan, and Amanda Hocking. I talked about editing, markets, and quality, but I was beginning to doubt. I had started to find articles from newer authors who were having nightmares with cover art, being left adrift to market themself, making ridiculously low royalties on their work. I read about publishers passing on their own bestsellers. And no matter how much I explained, my friends continued to see nothing wrong with self-publishing.
So I decided to see if my friends and parents were right. After all, they were my loved ones—would they tell me if my books, my actual stories, were really awful? There was a way to find out: release my books, and see if readers enjoyed them. At the time, I hoped (of course) that readers would love the books, and that I would be able to go back to publishers with a proven track record.
I simply did not have any idea how much joy would come from self-publishing. I found my own cover artist, and I struggled through the process of formatting the books for uploading. I learned about linked TOCs and how to file copyrights, and I poured my energy into creating a website. I felt proud of myself every day for being able to create something, build something. The best thing of all, however, came after the books were published: I was able to connect with readers entirely on my own terms, and I found, quite by accident, the best group of fans I can imagine.
And now? I’ve learned some things. I know that I wish my books were in hardcover as well as paperback. I’ve learned that nothing replaces an editor. I have found that every single moment of frustration and despair is worth it when someone says the magical words: “I loved this book.” I have no idea if I will ever end up traditionally published, fulfilling the dream I had at the start of this—but whether I do or not, it will be worth it. To quote Anne Lamott, “Publishing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But writing is.”

“You, Catwin, no longer exist. You no longer have a fate of your own, a will of your own, or indeed a soul of your own. You will go where Miriel goes, you will watch instead of being watched, you will hear instead of being heard.”

Catwin has always been good at being unseen…that is, until one fateful mistake brings her to the attention of the Duke of Voltur: the commander of the bloodiest battle in living memory, a man of legendary ruthlessness who is determined to be the power behind the throne. To this end, he has chosen Catwin to be a Shadow—spy, shield, and blade—to his niece Miriel as she works to catch the eye of the King.

But the Duke’s carefully laid plans are only a piece of the intrigue swirling within the royal court. Shadows gather: legacies of the centuries-long rivalries for power, old betrayals, the endless plots of the courtiers, and the murmur of rebellion in the southern provinces.

Greater forces than Catwin can imagine are massed against her, determined to eliminate Miriel and impose a new order of their own. If Catwin and Miriel are to survive, they must learn quickly who to trust, and when to turn their skills against the very people who have trained them…

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre - Fantasy

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author and the book

Connect with Moira Katson on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www. moirakatson.com

Sandy Nathan – How to Overcome Radio Stage Fright @sandyonathan

How to Overcome Radio Stage Fright
I’ll handle this question in one sentence: There is no way to overcome radio stage fright.
Every time I’m on the radio is the first time. Before every interview, I sit in front of my home altar, repeating my mantra so that my over-heated heart does not explode and squirt blood out of my ears. I’ve been this way as long as I’ve been talking on the radio.
It doesn’t matter that the radio host is a good friend and has been a visitor at our house. Doesn’t matter that she’s really smart, loves my work and me, and wants me to succeed even more than my mom did.
What can you do to overcome radio stage fright?

1. Know your material. That should be easy. You wrote it.
2. Make a detailed outline of what you want to say. Then simplify that. Make an even tighter statement of what you want to say and put it on index cards. Keep them where you can see them while you’re on the air.
3. Know the answers to the interviewer’s questions. This should be easy, if you wrote them. If you don’t know what the questions are, the index card tip above will suffice. Index cards and winging it—the ultimate terror.
4. An hour before the program, take a walk. If you live in an area where you might be mugged or something, don’t take a walk.
5. Breathe slowly and deeply and keep breathing until the show is over. Then you can stop breathing.
6. Hook up an old-fashioned, wired-connection telephone and use it. Wireless phones don’t record very well. Don’t use a cellphone, ever.
7. If you have any spiritual practice, now’s the time to haul it out: prayer, mantra repetition, meditation, tickling dog’s tummies. A trip to Lourdes (allow enough time).
8. Play music you find spiritual uplifting and/or calming before you go on.
9. Place an object or photo that has spiritual significance to you where you can see it during the interview. A saint’s picture, a sacred image, an icon. An archetypal object. Stare at it while you’re being interviewed. Maybe you’ll hypnotize yourself.
10. The first three minutes establish the success of your interview, so make them good.
11. DO NOT BREATHE INTO YOUR PHONE. Listeners will hear it and think you are an ax murderer. Don’t forget about this. You will feel dumb when you hear yourself panting later. Heavy breathing can ruin a good interview.
12. If the person interviewing you is friendly, relax and have fun. If the person is hostile, you can tell him that you’re not the person who wrote the book he’s talking about. You wrote Billy the Bison Barfs. Where are his questions about that? You can also cry. That works for women. I don’t know about guys. Alternatively, you can start karate classes two years before your interview. They probably teach stuff that would help there. Ditto for assertiveness training.
13. When it’s over, thank God and make a donation to your favorite charity. Schedule your next radio interview while you’re still high. (You’re gonna do great. Trust me.)
14. Major meds—name your favorite—really help. Instead of doing all of the above, you can drug yourself before the show. Just make sure that your speech isn’t slurred and you can remember your name.

Even if you everything I’ve taught you, nothing will really help. Radio stage fright is your body telling you that you are alive and facing a situation that could cause great humiliation. Or triumph.

Tomorrow morning at 7:35 AM, a nuclear holocaust will destroy the planet. Two people carry the keys to survival: Jeremy Edgarton, a 16-year-old, tech genius and revolutionary; and Eliana, the angelic, off-world traveler sent to Earth on a mission to prevent her planet’s death.

Welcome to a future world only heartbeats from our own.

By the late 22nd century, the Great Recession of the early 2000s has lead to a worldwide police state. A ruined United States barely functions. Government control masks chaos, dissenters are sent to camps, and technology is outlawed. War rages while the authorities proclaim the Great Peace.

It’s New York City on the eve of nuclear Armageddon.

Join Eliana & Jeremy as they begin a quest to save two doomed planets . . . and find each other.

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When the earth blows up at the end of The Angel & the Brown-eyed Boy (Earth’s End 1) that was it, right? The characters go off in all directions, nevermore to be seen.

Not exactly. In Lady Grace, a few survivors of the nuclear holocaust make their way back to Piermont Manor, Jeremy Edgarton’s ancestral estate. The radiation is gone and it’s finally safe to go home.

What awaits them makes their worst dreams look like Bollywood frolics. Right away, they find out that evolution can work for evil as well as good. Going home requires a battle more deadly than any they’ve fought.

The returning characters appear from everywhere, in ways you’d never believe. Some of them you’ve met before; some are new to Tales from Earth’s End.

Bud Creeman and Wesley Silverhorse, characters from author Sandy Nathan’s novel, Numenon: A Tale of Mysticism & Money, drop in from the year 2015, thousands of years before the time of Lady Grace. Bud and Wes provide needed Native American skills and spiritual power.

Shining through it all is Lady Grace, a phoenix rising from the devastation of her civilization, unrecognizable as the person she once was.

It was a new world, 
but was it one that permitted love?

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HE KNEW HER WORK WAS MURDER Sam Baahuhd has been the village headman for twenty-two years. Like all the headmen in surrounding villages, he has powers. But Sam’s powers are greater than any headman’s, anywhere, ever. He controls others with his speech and heals with a touch. Even with what he can do, Sam has survived only because he’s kept his fellow villagers from murdering him. They’re a gang of thugs who spend most of their time drunk or stoned. Sam and the villagers live on Veronica Edgarton’s estate. Or they do until nuclear Armageddon forces them into a huge underground bomb shelter. When Sam carries a naked stranger into the shelter, he knows what she did before the war. Her work was murder–murdering people.

She tortured people until they broke, or died. She was a federal agent in a police state. Nuclear radiation traps Sam and Emily and the rest of the village’s residents in an echoing cement cavern three hundred feet beneath the earth’s surface. There is no escape from the underground. Not for them. Or their children, or their children’s children . . . Sam has no idea Emily will ignite his heart and change his world. The lovely outsider carries deadly secrets. Only Sam with his village headman’s power can heal her. Only Emily can make Sam the man he was meant to be. Passion explodes between them. Passion that brings joy and pain, ecstasy and remorse. Passion that can kill. Join Sam & Emily for a legendary love story you’ll never forget.

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Genre – Metaphysical Science Fiction

Rating – R

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Massimo Marino – Easy Does It @Massim0Marin0 #SciFi

Easy Does It

For Hemingway, the secret to effective writing was to forget about the flowery prose of the literati and keep your writing simple, short, and clear. When he went to work for the Kansas City Star in 1917 he was given four rules for effective writing, and he stuck with them his whole life. Here they are:

1. Use short sentences.
2. Use short first paragraphs.
3. Use vigorous English.
4. Be positive, not negative.

If you add to these suggestion, the Elements of Style mantra, “cull the unnecessary words”, you are bound to write in a more effective, more gripping English.

Vigorous English is also what other writers mean when they say avoid passive sentences: have your subjects prominent and perform the actions rather than showing the objects enduring the actions by some obscured subject. Easy? Look for how many times you use construct that say ‘something was <acted upon> by <a poor weak subject> and you’ll see what weak is and reverse the phrase to show a strong acting subject.

Enter now Elmore Leonard. In his “Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing“

Leonard suggests that writers:

1. Never open a book with the weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said.”
5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Same for places and things.
10. Leave out the parts readers tend to skip.

Of course rules are to be known so that the writer that has a precise scope and violates them, he does it without falling into a trap, but circumventing rules for the right effect. Rules 3 and 4, when violated, are the mark of the amateur, or so say editors and agents; the seemingly nice “she said softly, he replied sternly, she asked angrily” and so on. Avoid them at all costs. Rule 6 is the obvious don’t use clichés, you’re a writer after all. It makes it so… sloppy writing.

Rule 8 is something that comes natural to me. I only sketches my characters, sometimes giving a trait here or there but never fill a paragraph describing the look and dresses in detail. You’re writing a novel, not a fashion magazine article. And 9, same for place and things. Leave room for readers’ imagination, they will become part of the story that will grow and take life in their mind. Rule 10 is golden but difficult. Which are the parts that readers skim? the boring ones. Your editor will point them to you and tell “this scene doesn’t advance the story!” That is, either it is there, or not, the story is unchanged, and if too long you risk to loose your readers. I sometimes err into failing with Rule 10, but my editor saves my derriere with his demonic skills.

Another author you might have encountered is Kurt Vonnegut.

In the preface to his short story collection Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, he gives us eight basics of what he calls Creative Writing 101. They are:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Rule 5, remember he’s talking short stories  On 6, I sometimes ask my characters where they do NOT want to go, for fear terrible things to happen to them, explore all the bad turns and twists, promising I’ll never force them there, then the next scene takes place in that horrid (for them) place. You’re god, but have no mercy. Rule 7., it can be your wife, as for Stephen King, or yourself seen as a reader. It matches the “write the story you’d like to read.” Of course, you can do that only if you’ve read a lot yourself before writing, otherwise there is little to invent or innovate there  Number 8, I think Kurt is once again talking to shorts. I am on the fence there… as soon as possible? How soon is it, and can it be too soon? Tough call. For readers to have complete understanding so that they can skip the last pages? Uhmm, I’m not there (yet?) with you in that, Kurt.

And you, do you have your own rules, do these ones resonate with you? I avoid like the black plague the use of -ly words and other adverbs in anything that is not dialogue. To me they undermine the “Show, Do not Tell”. What does your experience tell you?

Thanks for reading.

Mankind is undergoing rebirth, the new arrivals closely watched by the Selected: the transgenic beings created by the Moîrai. The new communities thrive with the aliens’ support and peace and security reign on Eridu, as the planet Earth is known by the Moîrai and in the galaxy.

But peace and security of the cradle are suddenly shattered by acts of sabotage set to disrupt the fragile balance of the fledgling communities.

From the coldest climes to the deepest ocean floors, a cosmic conspiracy full of betrayal and fear is being hatched with the hope of pushing the world perilously close to the brink of self-destruction.

It is up to Dan Amenta to journey through dark and deadly alleys–even into the depths of the planet–to unlock the shadowy logic of alien minds.

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Genre – Science Fiction

Rating – PG-13

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